Seven AM this morning found me in upstate New York, where I was the very last person to leave the annual Jartacular.  I was most definitely the very last person to pack, and indeed, were it not for the driving prowess and hyper awareness of my sister-in-law Tessa, I would have missed the train that got me to the subway that got me to Queens that got me into Sean’s car to get to the airport to fly back to California.  Six hours in the air and 1 1/2 hours in the car and now I’m back in my house, wishing I could sleep and dream the rest of the week away.

Between work and play, I now travel so often that I am creepily familiar with even the lane changes necessary to best navigate into the weird long-term parking lot I use in Oakland.  My modus operandi for all things packing and planning is so familiar- everything from the pre-trip lists and duties to the post-trip schedule for unpacking- that I can almost sleepwalk through it. I’ll admit I much prefer the planning of play trips rather than work trips, but many of the logistics are the same.  The only real difference is wardrobe.

It feels so strange to go from inhabiting one world to an altogether different world in the space of half a day.  In some ways, that is what I love about travel; but in other ways, it also makes me ask a rather melancholy question, which is this: am I any different now, because of this trip? This time, I can most enthusiastically say “yes” to that question.  But that hasn’t always been the case, and that, I think, is what I ultimately sometimes find difficult about traveling.  I don’t know why I seem to feel I need to have a value judgement of sorts on my trips, but there’s been many times that I’ve flown across the country (or even just driven two hours up the coast) and returned home, not having found whatever it was I was looking for, which sometimes led me to wishing I’d just stayed home.  

This trip, however, was lovely on so many levels, and now I wonder if I couldn’t just leave my bag packed by the door, and choose where to go tomorrow.  I know I’ll just end up at work, like I’m supposed to, but when your bag is already packed, it’s awful tempting just to keep on going.